Wednesday, July 16, 2008

you fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way....

Three days after the operation on my left eye, and things are coming along nicely. The eye itself is still pretty bloodshot and a little bit prickly and sore, but not too bad really considering the trauma of the procedure itself. Vision is not too bad: it's a bit blurry still, but apparently this is absolutely normal and my eyesight is basically fine when the left eye is used in conjunction with the other eye. Crucially, it also seems to be improving little by little every day. I think this might be the first time in my life that I haven't so much as touched a pair of glasses in more than 48 hours, and it's really quite liberating.

I'm still quite glad I've taken the time completely off work though. Not only do I not particularly want to spend all day in front of a computer screen (certainly not in the office), but it's also given me the time to do some other things: the garden's being done (not by me, I should hasten to add...by professionals); I've sorted out my iPhone; I've finally picked up some parcels from the Royal Mail and arranged for the delivery of some tickets (bloody couriers); I've been able to rip a load of CDs that have been kicking around for a while onto iTunes (Fleet Foxes, Hot Chip, Weezer, Neil Diamond, Paul Heaton, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Black Kids, Panic at the Disco, Lloyd Cole, some Springsteen....). Who knows, I may even have some time to give them all a proper listen before they disappear into the bowels of my iPod forever.... The Open Golf starts tomorrow and the 2nd Test against the South Africans begins on Friday, but I'm also hoping to squeeze in a few DVDs around all that sport....

We went out to the cinema on Sunday evening, actually, in an attempt to take my mind off the following day's operation. Did it work? Well, yes it did, actually. I don't reckon that the plot of Hancock stands up to much scrutiny, but that's hardly unique in a blockbuster. More seriously, I think the movie suffers from not knowing what kind of a film it wants to be (superhero film? comedy? tragedy? drama?), but I thought that, all in all, it was all perfectly diverting stuff. Will Smith is usually fairly watchable, as is Charlize Theron....

Last night though, I popped over to Blockbuster and picked up a couple of more "worthy" films that I missed:

First up was the Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country For Old Men". Now. I won't go into any plot details, but I really enjoyed this up until about the last 20 minutes. The atmosphere before that point had been built up superbly, and Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and especially Javier Bardem put in magnificent performances. For me though, they shot their bolt and blew the ending, which I felt was abrupt and anti-climactic. Perhaps that's Cormac McCarthy's fault in the original novel (and I've never been able to get into any of his books), but I did feel a bit let down really. Shame, as it's otherwise an excellent film. You certainly wouldn't want to bump into a character like Anton Chiguhr anytime soon - that scene in the gas station was absolutely chilling, even when he didn't kill anyone. What a character. One of the best screen villains I've seen in a long time.

Up tonight: There Will Be Blood. I'm not a massive Day-Lewis fan, but he at least wears a hat for most of the film, so if I ever get round to writing up a sketchy and incomplete review of that any time soon, at least I get to bore you all with that.

Probably Juno after that, but I also want to catch up on my Wire boxsets.

Kicking around at home is actually pretty relaxing. I should do this more often.

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Thanks very much for all your good wishes and happy thoughts over the last few days. Much appreciated, as was LB and Hen supplementing theirs by popping round with a big box of cookies and a hand-painted card. Blog Street is all very well, but sometimes it's no substitute for having actual, honest-to-goodness real life neighbours who care. With a little understanding, etc....